prompt: house of Black
by flowered
Summary: sirius's last summer at home


The truth about Sirius Black is that he is afraid. Not of a badly brewed potion taking a finger in a singularly brilliant explosion (which Slughorn says is any day coming for Sirius's inability to concentrate on the subject), not of Avery and Mulciber finally catching him off guard after one of his frequent detentions that don't let out until the halls are empty and Hogwarts is the sum of it's ghosts and shadows and James isn't at his side, not of Moony taking a bad brew of Wolfsbayne and railing on him with vicious teeth and razor claws. Sirius isn't even afraid of Sally Stranhards increasingly psychotic attempts to slip him a love potion (although the other three marauders were, having all been at the consequences of said _failed_ attempts - Jame's eyes still go misty when she walks by). No, Sirius Black isn't afraid of the things a normal sixteen year old boy is afraid of.

He stands outside 12 grimmauld place with his jaw clenched and a sinking feeling of despair raking through his chest and expelling out of his lungs into the thick summer air. His feet had stopped working and he had been rigidly incapacitated for over an hour, his legs starting to ache under his locked knees.

He knows he can't just stand there all night, though. It takes all of his bravery to move forward, foot over foot.

.

.

When Sirius finally steels himself and enters the house he is affronted with the unchanging familiarity, the normalicy of the Black home with it's sky blue and silver damask wallpaper hallway and iron wrought framed photos that all stand in stern poses, only breaking to scratch a nose or adjust a hairstyle in their faded glory of centuries past. The air smells of smoking kindling, even in the middle of summer. He drops the handle of his trunk and it vanishes, instantly - no doubt Kreacher sorting it into his room.

Regulus had gotten off of the express with him but had chosen to take another car to the manor. In another life, maybe, when nostalgia hits him of the way they use to be, Sirius doesn't have to hide behind the bleachers to watch his brother practice plays in quidditch. He doesn't have to constantly scratch out his name and ball parchments in half thought out reconciliation attempts that only ended up on the ground around his bed for Moony to bemoan as a horrible mess. He doesn't have to spend his birthdays pretending to be _just fine_ but sinking slightly when Regulus passes him in the halls without a word. But this was their life, right here, and in this life Regulus gave him a short expression and stepped off of the platform to find his own way home and he had probably been in for hours while Sirius stood outside and tried to wrap his head around another miserable summer.

.

.

He is glad, atleast, that noone had figured out some dubious way to remove his ever-stick charms from the gryffindor banners in his room, although he'd noticed the door was closed and everything was caked in dust - obviously even Kreacher had been commanded not to step foot inside. He doesn't care, good riddance. He has only just settled in, only just relished his muggle bikini girl photos still intact all around the wall of his bed, when his bedroom door slams itself open. Sirius is use to it but it still makes him jump, every single time. Both he and Regulus's doors had always been charmed to open at dinner, although he remembers it being much more gentle in his youth, before Hogwarts and the sorting and the falling out.

.

The Black dinner table is grossly oversized for the family that lives in the manor, just Regulus and Sirius and both their mother and father. Sirius wonders if it is spelled so full even in their absence, if his mother and father languish around the table trading snide remarks about muggles while roasted duck and lamb tempora spoil and the candles dim into late hours. Sirius enters, still in his Hogwarts uniform, his hands in his pockets and a sour expression to match whatever was about to take place. His father is largely disinterested - Sirius had been sorted into gryffindor and that had been that, kind of hands-brushing-dirt-off-into-the-air, _when you turn 17 you're out of here_. His mother, however, still had some wild idea that Sirius might be salvaged, might be brought back round to the flock, and it had made her completely mental and unwaveringly cruel. Sirius isn't overly concerned with her cold gaze and the lack of greeting from either of the sods, he is more concerned that Lucius Malfoy, Clinton Avery and Severus Snape all sit with their hands in their laps and smiles on their faces.

Sirius clenches his jaw to the right, even as his red and gold tie bursts into a controlled incendio spell and the table clucks with laughter as he fights to get it off from around his neck.

"Impressive use of wandless magic, Mrs. Black," Lucius drawls silkily, and Mrs. Black tilts her head in appreciation with her eyes still fixed coldly on her black-sheep son. Sirius lets out a strangled kind of noise, his feet again revolting againt his body and refusing to bring him forward.

His father leans back into his overly plush red cherry wood and gold silk brocade chair at the head of the table.

"Sit down," he says gruffly. While Mrs. Black is swift and cruel, Mr. Black is cold and calculated and infinitly good at languish punishments that were beyond the parlor tricks of ties bursting into flames. Sirius had learned this over the last few summers. He was also infinitly skilled at healing spells, otherwise Sirius might have returned from his summers looking like Remus - having a son covered in defiant scars and bruises was just in bad taste, he would say.

Sirius finally throws himself into the nearest dinner table chair, seeing no alternative. Lucius was not a new visitor to the home, he had been calling on Regulus since the summer before - but Avery and Snape, that was sinking low in an already bottomless pitt as far as friendships were concerned, Sirius thinks grimly. Avery returns the furtive razor glances with bemusement, as does Lucius. Snape, atleast, looks slightly uncomfortable.

"As I was saying," Lucius drawls on, leaning in close to where he sits by Mr. Black at the head of the table, "Regulus need only finish those neccessary OWLS with outstandings and a spot in the ministry could certainly be procurred for him. You know I would put my every effort into it."

A fully filled plate cracks into existance in front of Sirius, it's steaming contents blurred in his vision by the angry tears that start to swim in his eyes the more Lucius talks. His hands ball at his sides so tightly that his nails cut bloody lines into his palms.

"Good man, Lucius, good man. You know our Regulus is really making us proud this term, no doubt his OWLS will be in perfect order, and under your tutelage he can only flourish." Mr. Black says, picking up a fork to begin eating with a pleasant expression to the waxy, pale twenty-one year old.

"Good man, indeed, Lucius. Why don't you roll up your sleeve there, love, so we can all get a good look at your real tutelage," Sirius grits, unable to keep the words from pouring out of his mouth in spite and hatred.

Mrs. Black's fork clatters to her plate and she begins to rise, but Mr. Black captures her arm, willing her to still. Lucius simply smiles, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

"Oh, Sirius, I am sure you will get a good look at the mark come next summer," and he clasps his hand onto Regulus's shoulder, sitting on his other side, and gives him a friendly shake. Regulus responds with a sheepish grin, his eyes flitting between Snape and Avery as though looking for signs of jealousy and admiration. He gets what he seeks from both.

The blood in Sirius's palm is pooling, even as Mr. Black leans over the arm of his chair with a whisper and Lucius complies by, indeed, rolling up his right sleeve.

"Quite interested in the dark magic the Lord uses for these," he remarks, his fingers touching Lucius's arm in quiet appraisal. Sirius cuts his eyes up to find Snape watching him with a shadowed expression, there is laughter in it, at Sirius's misery.

"It takes only the spilling of the most inconsequential blood to receieve," Lucius confides. "To show your dedication to the cause, of course. I am positive Regulus will be up to the task of putting some dirty muggle out of their pitiful misery. Why, you can't really call what they do_ living_, anyway, can you?" and the table erupts into laughter again.

Sirius jerks upright so quickly that the back of his knees send his chair clattering to the ground and he stalks to Regulus, even as his parents both rise soundlessly from their own seats. He grabs his brother by the gruff of his velvet dinner jacket and hauls him up to his feet.

"We're getting the fuck out of here," he spits, trying to drag him away from the table even as he fights against it.

"Sirius!" His father's voice, but Sirius ignores it, tears still swimming in his vision - not tears of sadness, not tears because his family is so totally lost to him, but tears of anger that they laugh about murder so casually, so innocently, that they want to steer their sons into this same madness for archaic, outdated philosophies based around a name or a bloodline.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Mrs. Black screams, suddenly, rounding the table, causing Sirius to stiffen and his hands rake back, releasing Regulus. Regulus brushes and adjusts his jacket, his face red with embarrassment as he looks between Lucius and his father. Mrs. Black comes very close to Sirius. His back faces the rest of the table and only she can see the hot tears that spill down his cheeks from his paralysis. She sneers, indifferent.

"Apologize to the entire table," she commands. She waits. Sirius closes his eyes and remains silent.

She brings her hand up, her wand drawn from the previous curse, and points it at Sirius's chest.

"I said apologize you disgusting little blood traitor," She clenches.

Sirius imagines Snape behind him, reeling in ecstasy. Lucius smiling broadly. Avery licking his lips in excitement. It hurts him to know that Regulus stands immobile, making no attempt to help him or quell his mother's rage. He is accustomed to such hurts, though.

"Walburga.." Sirius's father interjects, obviously finding the public display of cruelty unsavory. He is a chorus of apologetic, nervous chuckles in Lucius's direction.

"We will attend to this matter in the evening, really, the food is chilling," he continues. But Mrs. Black's eyes are wild. She wavers her wand toward him, her voice rising with every word:

"There is no later! We should have sent him to Durmstrang as soon as he was sorted into gryffindor, we should have been forcing him to comply much earlier than now, we've been _far too lenient_, Orion," The words make Sirius snort, even frozen such as he is.

He sees Regulus shift uncomfortably. Her voice drops back to an even monotone.

"And you," she breathes into Sirius's face, "will apologize."

Her spell softens, only his legs and arms remain immobile before her, allowing him free use of his mouth. She waits. Sirius stares into her eyes, the wet trails on his cheeks drying as the minutes pass. He wonders if she enjoys hurting him. He has softer memories of climbing into bed with her, of her voice passing the late hours in old stories that Sirius had loved to hear before drifting to sleep. Of her hand capturing his when they went out in the early mornings to shop for casual excess. Her perfume, that had once seemed so sweet.

"You can't love him if you want that life for him," he finally chokes.

"Crucio!" She screams, suddenly. The entire world explodes behind Sirius's eyes, his body still half locked and falling to the floor hard, like a rock, struggling to contort at the pain but unable.

"Mother!" Regulus begins and Sirius is only half aware of her hand landing a deft slap across Regulus's cheek for his tone before she returns to glowering down over him, her features distorted. Sirius feels his eyes roll back in his head, colors blurring together. His neck spasms and he feels his cheek rub raw against the thich turkish rug in one hard grind but it is nothing next to the agony that starts in his skin and melts through to his muscles and bones and pumps with his blood in a pulse.

Her wand flicks and the spells leave him. Sirus's head lolls bwtween consciousness and a dark, deep sleep that his body wants to go to to escape the resonating pain. Minutes pass like hours and he can see his mother's shoe's turn away from him in disgust; the floor reverberates with the footsteps of their dinner guests taking their leave, their voices muffled against Sirius's ringing ears. Drool beads out of his mouth in one thick string that connects to the floor. He tries to move his hand but his fingers only twitch.

He can only half see but he knows it is Regulus who kneels down in front of him, his hand pressing against Sirius's cheek softly, against his head, rolls him over on his stomach so he doesn't choke on his own tongue when he finally passes out.

He leaves without another word or kindness and the world goes as black as a starless night.

.

.

In his dreams Sirius sees Remus standing in front of their house, right where Number12 should be. He is in strangly elegant clothes and he holds a single Lily. The wind captures his hair and brushes it against his intense eyes as he waits, patiently. Sirius feels his heart quicken. Mrs. Black is screaming behind him even as he swings the door open. They stare at one another silently until Remus offers a sweet smile, his hand raising a few inches with the flower.

Sirius smiles, slowly, until he is all sharp canines and bare feet running over the cobblestone and the pain of his body doesn't matter anymore as he clasps his arms around Remus's small frame, making him drop the flower at their feet.

"Come home to your real family," Remus whispers into his ear.

.

.

When Sirius wakes it is with a jolt. He lies in the dark heat of his bedroom at Number12. His entire body in on fire with the lingering pain of the curse his mother had thrown at him. He doesn't know what day it is, or how long he has slept. He looks to the door fearfully, knowing the summer has just begun, his face covered in a thick grime of dried sweat.


End file.
